The Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings today launched the 2015 Brookings Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) Report and Scorecard, which evaluates access to and usage of affordable financial services across 21 countries. According to Brookings’ FDIP analysis, Malawi earned a 19th place ranking for the country’s overall financial inclusion efforts.
Brookings experts John D. Villasenor, Darrell M. West, and Robin J. Lewis analyzed the financial inclusion landscape in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, and Zambia. Countries received scores and rankings based on 33 indicators spanning four dimensions: country commitment, mobile capacity, regulatory environment, and adoption.
Malawi earned 63 percent of the total possible points to garner the top overall score. Other highlights of Malawi’s performance metrics include:
- Ranked in 12th place for country commitment.
- Secured 16th place for mobile capacity.
- Earned a 3rd place ranking for regulatory environment.
- Ranked 19th for adoption.
- Malawi has engaged in a number of efforts to advance access to quality financial products through regulatory mechanisms and various infrastructure initiatives.
- Challenges to financial inclusion in Malawi include limited economic capital and telecommunications infrastructure, as well as fairly low literacy rates, income levels, and mobile and banking penetration rates.
This year’s Report and Scorecard is the first of a series of annual reports examining financial inclusion activities around the world, and it is being unveiled at a public event and webcast on Wednesday.
